Entering a New World

While in Tauranga studying (see our post "The Wonder of God at Work") we began to hear reports of a visitation of God down in Timaru. An unassuming evangelist by the name of A.S. Worley from Tennessee, USA, had been led of the Lord to come to New Zealand. He had met with some leaders in the South Island and had told them,

"I feel from the Lord to go start some meetings in Timaru."

Everyone tried to dissuade him.

"Timaru is the preacher's graveyard" they said.

But his reply, in his broad southern accent, was...

"I think I'll go to Teemaroo."

So he did. He started in a hall with five people. His wife, who was a lovely lady, led the singing - but couldn't sing a note.

We began to hear reports in Tauranga - "100 people have come to the Lord and there have been many miracles of healing." Then more reports, "200 have come to the Lord" - "300" - "400" - "500" - "600" - "700".

A.S. Worley then called for Ron Coady and myself to go down and help him. The meetings were held almost every day, with Wednesday designated a teaching meeting and Saturday night a young people's meeting. Because I had worked with young people in the YMCA, I was asked to take the Saturday night. However, all the meetings were the same...with people receiving the Word, people being saved and people being healed...so everyone came to all the meetings. After I had preached I made an altar call and many people came out to receive the Lord and also for healing. I had observed how A.S. Worley prayed for the people. With a sweep of his arm he would put his hand on their head and say "Be healed in Jesus' Name". And they were. So, as a young man new to this kind of ministry, I did it the same way. With a sweep of my arm I put my hand on their head. "Be healed in Jesus' Name" I said. And, wonder of wonders, they were! So I didn't stop.

Worley was a quiet man who imparted faith everywhere he went. Ron and I stayed with him and his wife in their rented house. He was always praying and writing out statements of faith on large cards. For the first 15 minutes when he ministered he spoke very slowly and it would be very boring, then suddenly the anointing of God would come upon him. He would kick up his leg, take his handkerchief out of his pocket, throw it on the table, and he was off. He made faith seem so simple you felt ridiculous if you didn't believe, and the people responded.

Worley returned to the United States and Ron and I continued to pastor the new church in Timaru. The miracles continued. There were also many beautiful baptisms. I remember one in particular where 60 people were baptised in a freezing river. Many of this group were elderly and sick. We suggested to them that maybe they shouldn't be baptised that day because it was so cold. They insisted and were baptised, coming up out of the water healed and rejoicing.

Invitations began to flow in. Ron and I took a team to many cities of the South Island. Ron had some personal problems to work through but he was an outstanding preacher and had a great gift of faith and miracles. Although ten years my senior, he shared the ministry equally with me. Each meeting we would divide it. One evening I would lead the worship and prepare the people to receive the Word. Then Ron would preach and make the altar call. I would then prepare the people to receive healing and then, together, we would both minister with the laying on of hands. The next night we would reverse it. Ron would lead and I would preach.

In Invercargill, 210 people came to the Lord. Many were healed. One man, who was a lumberjack, had had his elbow destroyed when a steel rope snapped and whip-lashed it. Surgeons had put in a metal joint but it was not successful and his arm was closed across his chest and he was unable to move it. We took hold of his arm. Ron pulled it "in the Name of Jesus!" There was a mighty crunching sound, heard by everyone in the auditorium. His arm was free. From that night onwards he was able to use it normally. He lived in Gore, another city in the South Island, and invited us to go there. Out of 5000 in the city and surrounds, 3000 came to the meetings, and 600 responded to the Gospel message.

In each place many miracles were reported as well as signs and wonders such as many supernaturally receiving fillings for their teeth and holy oil appearing on people's hands. People saw angels in some of the gatherings.

Ron and I decided two things. Firstly, we would not take offerings for ourselves but just trust God for our support. Secondly, we would have a week of teaching to prepare the people before the Gospel meetings. So I went down to Gore early for this preparation. After one of the meetings a grandmother brought her two grandsons to me. We were standing together quietly in a corner as the people were fellowshipping around. Her youngest grandson, about five years old, was deaf. The older boy, about nine years old, had terminal bone cancer. Both boys also had badly decayed teeth. Would I pray for them, she asked. This grandmother had great faith in the Lord for the boys' healing. Quietly, in the corner, I prayed for these precious boys. Immediately their teeth were healed and the younger boy's ears were opened. He could hear! The older boy's healing was not so evident but we knew God had touched him. Three weeks later the grandmother returned with a doctor's report. All cancer had gone from the boy. He was completely healed.

The spirit of faith was so high in the meetings in Gore that the people came early and began spontaneously singing all the glorious songs of praise, so that by the time Ron and I arrived at the Gore Community hall at 7.30 each evening, the place was "alive". At the end of the meetings, around 11 or 11.30 pm, having seen many people come to the Lord and many miracles take place, they would all start "victory marches" round and round the hall, with great rejoicing.

Hundreds came to the meetings in each place...several hundred in Invercargill, many hundreds in Gore. 60 came to the Lord in Riccarton, 80 in Waimate. Many hundreds in Nelson and Motueka. 250 came to the meetings at the YMCA in Christchurch, several hundred in Rangiora. So many wonderful miracles - too many to report here.

What a great privilege it was to see the Lord move in such a wonderful way....watching people's lives dramatically changed through faith in the Saviour...seeing Him move in His compassion to heal and perform miracles as He had done when He had walked the earth so long ago....being so aware that we had nothing to do with it except having the joy to be there as He ministered...seeing the living reality of the scripture...

"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).

My life was never the same again.

Miracle Keys

Often the Lord does little things for us to encourage us. Often the little miracles are just as great as the big ones.

The day before yesterday (Sunday) we were making another move to another house to stay for a few days while we are here in Melbourne. (This is part of our life - moving.) We were in the process of packing our bags into our little yellow Hyundai Getz (nicknamed by our grandchildren "the yellow jelly bean"). It was night and it was dark in the driveway as we were packing. For some unforseen reason we mislaid both our sets of car keys. We searched and searched and finally found Bunty's, which had fallen into one of the open carry bags. But search as we did we couldn't find mine. We prayed for the Lord's help but, finally, had to leave without my keys. It was a 40 minute drive to our new location and we left the car parked overnight outside the house.

We didn't use the car the following day but about 6 that evening, Ami, the daughter of our hosts, MayWan and David, came in while we were having dinner and said to us, "Do these keys belong to you? I found them on top of your car".

We were absolutely amazed! How could those keys have stayed on top of the car all that way? There are many speed bumps and tramway tracks along the road which made it a pretty bumpy ride. We concluded that this had to be a miracle. The Lord must have sent an angel to look after those keys.

We are still rejoicing in the Lord and many are marvelling with us.

The Wonder of God at Work

After being challenged to be willing for missionary service (see our previous post - "To Go or Not to Go"), I completed my studies for Youth Leadership at the Y.M.C.A. College in Sydney.

It was because I had witnessed God's miraculous hand at work in the lives of young people in New Zealand that I felt led of the Lord to study for Youth Leadership at the Y.M.C.A. As a teenager in the Methodist Church I was reaching out for the "living edge" with God. I had read how Moses had asked God to show him His glory (Exodus 33:18) and as I was sitting in the pew of the Bryndwr Methodist Church in Christchurch one Sunday I asked the Lord "Would you show me your glory, Lord?" In the midst of a packed church, a white cloud of the glorious presence of the Lord descended upon me. No one else would have seen it but I was overcome by the purity and light of the glory of God. So much so that, after just a few seconds, I had to ask the Lord to take it away because it was more than I could bear.

Because of this experience I started to reach out to the unchurched young people in the 14 to 16 age group in our district. I got permission from the minister, Mr Larsen, to clear out an old Sunday School room which was full of junk. This I transformed into a Club House with a record player, young people's library with all my football books, and antlers on the wall. I formed a Club and gathered a hundred young people from the district. In my naivity I organised teams of the young people to camp out for three days and nights to buy tickets for the Rugby football game between New Zealand and South Africa. We then sold all these tickets on the "open market" for a big profit :-) and then bought special jumpers with a big Boys' Club badge on the front. This gave them the sense of belonging. It was not long after this I organised a camp on a farm. I remember having to preach my first message and, feeling so inadequate, I climbed up into an empty water tower to seek the Lord for what I should share. Maybe I thought I was feeling closer to God there :-) This was a totally new experience for me. The only thing I could think of to speak about was "The Ten Talents" (Matthew 25:14-30). I delivered this message to the young people and I thought to myself "What an abject failure I am at this business. I will never preach again!"

I went out, walking in the paddocks of the farm, commiserating with myself - having a real old "pity party". Then, at one of the gates, I came upon three of the young people. They immediately said, "That message was tremendous!" I was so surprised. But talking more with them I ended up leading them to Jesus. Then, because it started raining, we went inside and continued to talk about the Lord. One of the other leaders came into the room and these three young people told him they had come to the Lord. He said, "We've been talking to the others in the main room and we haven't gone far enough with them." So we all went over to the main room. The three young people shared with the others what had happened to them. All that night, one by one, 114 of them came to the Lord.

How wonderful! My life was changed. My priorities were reset. I found it easy to give up my Rugby career which had been going so well. My goal to get into the New Zealand All-Black team had not been far away. But now, seeing God move so miraculously in the lives of these young people prompted me to go to the Y.M.C.A. Leadership Training College in Sydney. I was now walking on the living edge of God's purpose for my life.

Apart from the studies and the wonderful fellowship I had with the students at the Y.M.C.A. College, I was required to do field work in the inner city, depressed areas, of Sydney - Redfern, Surrey Hills and Waterloo. This was a great experience of reaching out to these underprivileged kids.

It was during the last year at the Y.M.C.A. College I was asked by Christian Television Association to appear on two weekly television programs. It was here I met Bunty, who was producing one and appearing in the other.

I then returned to Auckland, New Zealand, to take up the position of Executive Director of the Y.M.C.A. on the North Shore in Devonport. It was a wonderful year which saw the membership double and many young people come to know the Lord. This produced an amazing phenomenum where these new converts, by their own initiative, went out and witnessed to their friends and then brought them in to see me. Together we then led them to the Lord. There is nothing like the miracle of new birth! To see lives transformed by God's amazing grace.

After a year, however, I began to be stirred by the Lord again in relation to the mission field. The condition I gave to the Lord was that if He was leading me out He would bring in a replacement who was fully committed to Jesus. This he did and I was released to go. I then went, with my younger brother, Terry, to a 3-month Bible School run by Rob Wheeler in Tauranga. Here we were to learn more of the moving of the Holy Spirit and many of the keys that have opened the Scriptures to us. We also learnt what it meant to live by faith and rejoice in periods of deprivation.

It was not long before Terry and I ran out of money. We cashed in loads of old beer bottles left under the house by a previous tennant, but that soon was gone. Because the Bible School ran in the evenings, we would go down each day to the city employment office to apply for work, but had no success. The opposite to the natural reaction would come upon us. We would come out laughing. We would laugh and laugh - "No money - no jobs!" We were hungry but we remembered that each Sunday we were swamped with invitations for beautiful roast dinners. We thought, we just have to fast it out until Sunday. Guess what! That Sunday - no invitations! We walked home laughing and laughing - "No roast dinner!" Arriving home, still laughing, there was a knock on the door. Jim, a good friend, had arrived with a plate of cream cakes. "We thought you might like these", he said, and left. We put the cream cakes on the table and starting to laugh. "We don't want cream cakes" we laughed at one another, "We don't want cream cakes, we want a steak!" We were learning to laugh the laugh of faith at deprivation - situations we would face many times on the mission fields of Asia.

The School and the local Fellowship met on the first floor of a shopfront building. It was here that we saw great outpourings of the Holy Spirit. Many people "drunk" in the Spirit as on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-21). Sometimes it was hard to get some of them home quietly to houses of unsaved loved ones. They just wanted to continue to praise the Lord. One day a whole service was taken over by the Lord in worship. The only instrument in the room was a small pedal organ which was played by an elderly brother in the Lord. After over two hours of worship we walked down into the street outside. People came up to us and said "What a wonderful orchestra you've got!" They had heard trumpets and violins and a beautiful choir. Obviously the angels had been joining in worship with us.

What we experienced there in Tauranga was the beginning of what we were about to experience of a wonderful visitation of God in the South Island of New Zealand, which we will share about in a future post.

To Go or Not To Go

Today is the 44th anniversary of the day we set out as missionaries to Thailand. July 8th, 1962 was a momentous day in our lives. We were, unbeknown to us, part of the last leg of an era...part of the old breed of missionaries who left families and homelands committed for life to a strange and unseen land. On that day, as the streamers flowed between the ship and the farewellers on land, the tears flowed freely on both sides. As we stood on the deck of the Arcadia, with our twelve-week-old baby boy in our arms, we didn't know if we would ever return or see our families again.

The voyage we were about to undertake was the fulfilment of God's stirrings in our hearts over a period of time. At the age of 21, while studying at the YMCA College in Sydney, I had gone to a missionary meeting to hear Sundah Sing and W.E. Maxwell of the Prairie Bible Institute, and to see "Through Gates of Splendour", the movie depicting the lives and sacrifice of the missionaries killed by the Alca Indians in South America. 2000 young people had filled the Sydney Town Hall. At the end of the movie the challenge was given "Who will go as a missionary for the Lord?" There was very little response. I was convinced that did not apply to me. I was not called or suited to be a missionary, I was sure. Then a second challenge was given. "Who would be willing to go as a missionary IF the Lord should call them?" I remember thinking, "I can't escape that. If the Lord should call me I would be willing". I slowly put up my hand in response. To this day I laugh..."The Lord said, 'I see that hand'!" I returned to New Zealand to experience a wonderful visitation of God in many cities of the South Island where Ron Coady and myself saw hundreds come to the Lord with miraculous healings.

Bunty and I had not yet met at that time, but the Lord was stirring her heart also. She had read the book "CT Studd", about the upper-class English cricketeer who had given up everything - his inheritance and his position - and gone out as a missionary first to China, then India and finally, Africa, founding the W.E.C. missionary organisation. She began attending missionary meetings every Saturday night at the W.E.C. base in Sydney. Every missionary she met and heard speak stirred her heart and she longed to go where people had never heard the Gospel. She would pray day after day "Please Lord, please Lord, send me". Finally, again silently praying this while listening to a missionary speak, the Lord spoke clearly to her heart, "Someday, somehow, somewhere, you will go".

Not long after we were married, we sat out on the small island at Balmoral Beach in Sydney and prayed together, "Lord where do you want us to go. We are willing to go anywhere." He spoke clearly to our hearts, "Just start going and I will show you where." So we began to move. We started to pack up our things and told our family and friends we were going. From that moment on it seemed that every time we turned on the news, or looked at a magazine, or heard someone speak, it was always about Thailand. It soon became very clear to us that that was where the Lord wanted us to go.

We applied at the Thai embassy for visas to allow us to live in Thailand. Thailand at that time was under martial law. We waited and waited and waited but the only visa available was a 3-week visitor's visa. Numerous leaders in the Body of Christ counselled us..."Don't go on a tourist visa. Wait for your permanent visas to come through". We decided to ask the Lord. As we prayed, a peace and joy filled our hearts. His answer was "Go". So, as we set sail on July 8th, with our numerous crates of household goods we had received as wedding gifts, the visas in our passports allowed us only three weeks.

Our journey aboard the Arcadia took us through the Philippines and Hong Kong. Our travel agent had told us that from Hong Kong to Bangkok we were booked on a luxury Scandanavian liner and the voyage would take three days. Nothing could be further from the truth! When the day came to board the liner for the final leg of our journey we were taken across the Hong Kong harbour by row boat to a rusty old cargo ship called the "Hang Yang". A rope ladder was thrown down for us to climb up and on reaching the top we were greeted by a concerned looking captain with the words "They didn't tell us you had a baby"!

Only two other passengers were on board with us...two young Swiss men backpacking around the world. There was no deck to relax on. We had to keep in our cabin for the whole trip, except at dinner time when we ate with the captain sitting at a very rocky table. The cabin was filled with cockroaches. There was no airconditioning and we had to put the specially provided "air catcher" out the porthole to get some air into the cabin. Unfortunately all it caught was the waves and seawater would flood in. We hit a tropical storm and instead of the journey taking 3 days it took 7. Both of us were very seasick. There were absolutely no facilities for the baby...no fresh water to wash his towelling diapers. We had to jettison his nappies out the porthole. We joke about the "golden trail" all the way from Hong Kong to Bangkok...the first disposable diapers. There was no way to sterilize his bottles and Bunty had to go down to the engine room and try to communicate in sign language to the very amused Chinese crew the need to boil them and fill them with boiled water.

It was with great joy - and great relief - the morning we saw the coastline of Thailand and finally arrived in Bangkok. Amazingly, despite all our crates and luggage, the customs men accepted our three-week tourist visa and we disembarked.

Space doesn't permit us to tell of all the Lord's wonderful working in getting us settled in a little Thai house but the biggest miracle was about to happen. Without realising how difficult it would make it, we were foolishly travelling on different passports - mine a New Zealand one, Bunty's British, and David, although officially on Bunty's passport, was an Australian citizen - and so, trying to get a resident visa, I was having to deal with three different embassies. None of them would help until finally, someone in the New Zealand embassy took pity on us. "My secretary is the niece of the General who is in charge of immigration", he said. "I'll see if she can get you an interview". The Lord was at work! With only one day left on our tourist visa the niece was finally able to get me an appointment with her uncle. As I walked into the Immigration Department and was directed to the General's office, I couldn't help but notice the many illegal overstayers behind the barred windows in the rooms along the corridor. Although we had not overstayed our visas (even though we had no funds for our return passage), it was still a little disconcerting to see them imprisoned there. I had been told of the importance of the Thai custom of showing respect by always keeping your head below the one in a superior position. When I opened the door to the General’s office I saw a little man sitting behind a huge desk. I am sure it was a very amusing sight to the angels and to the General himself to see me putting my hands together in a traditional “wai”, lowering my head and waddling on bent knees towards the man at the desk. As I sat down in front of the General’s desk, his first question was a very disheartening one. “Did you see what we do with illegal overstayers as you came along the corridor?” “Yes sir” I said. “You want to stay in our country?” he asked. “Yes sir” I said again. “Your family wants to stay?” “Yes sir”. The General stamped something on his desk, signed it and gave it to me. He had given us a ninety-nine year visa!

This was the beginning of miracles in this era of our lives in Thailand. To follow over the next years were to be many more wonderful miracles and many, many converts to the faith. About these miracles we will share later.

This wonderful answer to our prayers was God giving emphatic confirmation to our willingness to obey Him and our particular calling to Thailand. Obedience is a key for all of us as we seek to respond to God's callings and directions.

Welcome to "The Living Edge"!

We believe that we have been led by the Lord to share our journey of over 50 years of ministry in many countries of Asia and the Pacific. It has been a great pilgrimage with the Lord, embracing many challenges of faith and miracles that the Lord has performed to reveal His glory.

We have been privileged to see God's hand at work as He has led us day by day and year by year in His plan for the harvest.

He has also opened our eyes to great needs within His Body, the Church, and revealed, in His Word, the answers to these needs.

We trust that our sharing in three separate blogs...

"The Living Edge"
"Sure Foundations"
"The Birthright"

...will strike a chord in your heart for God's ultimate purpose in your life.

Together with these blogs comes our prayers for the unity of the Body of Christ and special blessing upon your life.

We believe the Word of God is a living reality. With religion, it is only the Word become word, but in God's pure salvation, it is the Word become flesh in us (see John 1:14).

Every blessing,

Paul and Bunty Collins